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Three Found Guilty for Spamming

The US Attorney Benton J. Campbell of the Eastern District of New York and Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division announced on January 30, 2008 that three defendants held guilty to federal charges on demanding a fraud "advance-fee" scheme, for duping the US victims with false promises of giving big amount of dollars, subsuming money from a lottery and an estate, as published by SunHerald on January 30, 2008.

As per the Department of Justice (DOJ), the three accused sent spam e-mails claiming to be coming from a terminally ill patient of throat cancer who needs assistant to donate around US$55 Million to charity .

Out of the three who got arrested, two belongs to Nigeria and the third one is from Senegal. The DOJ stated in a press release that thousands of victims were sent spam e-mails by the three accused. In those e-mails, they claimed to have large amount of dollars positioned abroad. The DOJ also said that scam victims lost around $1.20 Million as they gave out fees in advance.

The guilty were held in the US District Court for New York's Eastern District. The names of the accused were Chizuba, Nnamdi, and Anisiobi, of Nigeria, aged 31 years, also known as Yellowman, Michael Anderson, Nancy White, Edmund Walter, Abdul Rahman, Namo, and Jiggaman. Another convict was Anthony Friday Ehis, alias Toni N. Amokwu, John J. Smith and Mr. T, aged 34, from Senegal. Kesandu Egwuonwu, the third victim, is aged 35, and is from Nigeria and is used fake names like David Mark, Joey Martin Maxwell, Helmut Schkinger and KeKe. Also, Anisiobi was pleaded guilty of one case of conspiracy, one of mail fraud and eight cases of wired fraud.

The investigation on the three accused was initiated by the Dutch law enforcement authorities. The Dutch authorities identified the victims in the US and soon notified their illegal act to the US Postal Inspection Service. From there on, the Postal Inspection Service started their investigation and charged the accused with the allegation. The defendants were arrested in Amsterdam on February 21, 2006, and were extradited to the US then.